Putney Pusher suspect found dead, according to reports

[Fartughtyred]

Goodness me, wasn't expecting that.

Heard an interview on Radio 4 with his sister (I think) who said he had given the police lots of evidence including an alibi that placed him in his office in Kensington 10 minutes before the incident. An email sent from his workplace which didn’t allow remote working at the time. It would be pretty impossible to get from there to Putney Bridge in that time, including the time needed to change out of his work suit into jogging gear. He also has a tattoo on his arm which the pusher didn’t seem to have from the footage. He had also been released from answering bail and it would seem the police were just waiting on a DNA test result in order to NFA him. It’s not unusual for police to take ages to tie up an investigation like this due to staff shortages. So all indications are that, far from being about to charge him, they were actually pretty close to releasing him from investigation.

Now, of course, the sister could have been lying, but these statements could have been pretty easily refuted by the police if so. They haven’t done this.

it’s in no one’s interest to decide that this guy was guilty when evidence seems to point to him being the latest in a long list of dead ends in the police investigation. We want them to get the guy who actually did it off the streets.

Are you suggesting the police just viewed the evidence and went, “yeah, bang to rights but we’ll just keep stringing this guy along as we need someone in the frame”? It’s much, much more likely they looked at the submitted evidence and didn’t find it particularly convincing so carried on investigating.

And the police don’t tend to give a live, running commentary on whether they find suspects’ family-submitted evidence convincing or not.

I’d put very good money on the family having spent a lot on PR in the last few days. Completely rational choice given their means and the circumstances.

I’m not sure the sisters’ actions are helpful in trying to defend him.

Totally agree. I don’t think the PR advice they have had has actually been very good.

I think they probably knew how bad his MH was and feared him taking his own life. They’ll be distraught it’s come to pass.

Oh I can understand their fear and desire to try to defend him. But I’m not sure they’ve gone about this in a helpful way. I agree with the pp that maybe they’ve been ill-advised. It’s very easy to say things like ‘we have an email from him that morning and we’ve handed it to the police’ but of course there are many reasons why the time stamp on an email may not be the time it was sent. An investigation into data from the servers inevitably takes time. (Obviously none of us know exactly what the police were looking into but that’s just one example.) And the suggestion of paying privately for the DNA analysis looks positively dodgy! Of course, it may not have been intended that way but it’s not a good look. The sisters seem to airbrush out the previous conviction and the other investigation into possession of class A and B drugs too. Understandable that they would prefer to do that, but it doesn’t help their case.

Which wouldn't have existed if not for his identity being revealed. There could be no campaign if the public didn't know who he was.

And yes, having Class A in his house was also an issue, and would be even if someone else had come out and confessed the day after. No getting round that one. He had joint custody of a 3 year old and according to someone upthread had been suspended at work over the drugs.

From 20 June, when arrested: ‘Officers are believed to have spoken to a former partner of the suspect in recent weeks after receiving a tip-off from a third party.’

So the ex did not instigate the report.

It wasn't a work e-mail, he'd mailed his sisters, so they had the mail. Of course that could he faked, and he might have sprinted to a lap top to send it to establish an alibi. But that's how they have the mail.

Hitchen's law applies.

The email thing is odd because why would be email his sisters from an office pc? Also, the sisters seem to be assuming from the time stamp that this is evidence he couldn’t have been on the bridge at the time of the assault, but of course there are numerous reasons why the time stamp on an email may not be accurate

Is the email meant to be from another location? There’d surely be so many things to check to verify someone’s movements. Travel, people at the location etc

I've sent personal emails from an office PC loads of times, albeit not as late as 2017 when everyone had smartphones. Doesn't strike me as an odd thing to do. Most people do type faster on a keyboard than a phone so you might choose to do it that way.

But as you say, an email may not be conclusive. I know you could tell now which device a person sent it from, but not sure whether that's doable for emails 9 years ago. And it could've been a scheduled send- again not sure if that's something that could be checked now?

If that’s directed at me, I think it’s entirely possible the police were just taking a long time to complete investigations as is common with an understaffed police force. Especially if the evidence they had examined was fairly strong in indicating he wasn’t involved, completing the process towards an NFA wouldn’t be top priority if they had more pressing priorities..

The fact he was no longer required to answer bail doesn’t to me sound like they were on the point of charging him. Of course, I can’t possibly know any of this for certain, I’m not privy to the police investigation records. But neither is anyone else on this thread. Certainly no justification for the many posters here deciding he was guilty and he should rot in hell.

I cam imagine an e-mail that established an alibi 100%, I can imagine an e-mail that made a jury think that he probably was at work and I can imagine an email that was evidential worthless.

Which of those three this email is we don't know but it only matters if the evidence he was the PP is good. If the evidence he is the PP is poor then he doesn't even need an alibi, any more than catussuperior needs an alibi.

Well if they don't, who else is going to? Most people apparently think he's guilty.

It would take time to investigate the exact time and location an email was sent. I assume looking at data from the servers? It may not even be possible 9 years later.

it certainly seems as though the sisters appear to think they can just produce a time stamped email and say this is evidence of where he was at a certain time! But as I said earlier, I think the sisters actions are not helpful in trying to defend their brother and I feel they’ve perhaps been given very poor pr advice

I don’t think most people think he’s guilty! I think most people don’t know. I do, however, think it’s highly likely he was guilty of possession of Class A and B drugs, and we know he was convicted for hitting a cyclist while riding his Harley Davidson. None of us know whether he was also guilty of this other crime.

There would've been at the time. It's going to be a lot harder 9 years on.

But also, it's two separate things here. The family are saying the email proves he couldn't have been the pusher. It's also possible the email is inconclusive and doesn't show where he was when it was sent, in which case it's not evidence of his guilt and nor is it the evidence of his innocence that the family are saying it is.

He obviously didn't have to prove himself innocent, not the way criminal law works. But now he's died that's what his family are trying to do.

True, it’d be far easier now but 9 years is a fair while.

You are the one saying he is definitely guilty. You are the one who needs to provide evidence to back that up. The only publicly available evidence is some blurry images that could be him but could equally be someone else, and the fact that a friend of his estranged wife told the police he was the pusher. That clearly falls a long way short of proving it was him. Since you are able to state with absolute certainty it was him, you clearly have access to some other evidence not available to us mere mortals, so why not tell us about it?

If I needed or wanted to prove that I was in my workplace on a certain date at a certain time and I worked for a bank - I would ask the police to ask for witnesses, ask my boss, ask for signing in books, card entry logs, health and safety monitoring, CCTV images.....

The very very last thing I would think of would be an email I had sent to my sister/s.

I thought the fact the Sisters were willing to go to his defence spoke volumes. If he was a randomly violent nutter I doubt his sisters would stick their necks out in his defence.

So I've gone from 50:50 to 49.99:50.01 in his favour. I just want to see if the evidence passes the sniff test.

Police are meant to do this anyway surely. Without being asked.